Judging the accuracy of children's recall: a statement-level analysis

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Forensic Psychology
• Child Development

Background:

• Assessing the accuracy of children's testimony is crucial in legal and investigative contexts.
• Fact finders' ability to discern truthfulness in child witnesses is a key area of research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how fact finders judge the accuracy of children's recall regarding a specific event (dental visit).
• To examine the influence of confidence information on judgment accuracy.
• To identify factors that enhance the evaluation of child testimony.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments were conducted using cued recall questions about a dental visit.
• Participants (fact finders) judged the correctness of children's answers.
• Confidence information was manipulated (present and absent) across experiments.

Main Results:

• Participants demonstrated better-than-chance accuracy in judging children's answers.
• Accuracy was higher when children's answers were correct.
• Removing confidence information did not decrease, and sometimes improved, judgment accuracy.
• Parents and professionals showed the best performance when confidence information was absent.

Conclusions:

• Written transcripts of child testimony can be valuable tools for fact finders.
• Knowledge about the child and the event significantly impacts the ability to accurately judge testimony.
• Confidence levels may not be a reliable indicator of children's testimony accuracy.